This was a spur of the moment decision to attend this mission at Ft. Logan National Cemetery, so I never even got the name of the Fallen that we were there to honor.
It was Duke’s first mission with Lorraine Melgosa of Wellington Carriage from Manzanola, Colorado, and she asked me to get there early and help out since she expected things to be a bit dicey, especially since a real service a couple hundred miles from home with crowds and rifle salutes and little kids underfoot might be a shock to him.
We had a couple hours before the service, and Greg Watson even helped out by tossing some firecrackers around while Lorraine used her “firm voice” to keep things moving in a straight line.
I’ll never get over it, though, just how big a Percheron draught horse is. Duke, as young as he was, simply towered over me, and I kept my distance. I don’t know my horses that well, but he is a few inches taller than me at the whithers, and I am 5’11. Just massive.
She told me a month or two later when we caught up on the phone that he had since gained another couple hundred pounds, and at that point was well over 2,000. Just a good old Amish boy, working and making it big in Colorado, eating right and putting on some muscle again on Lorraine’s farm after pulling a plow in Pennsylvania for a while.
Lorraine’s preparations paid off, and the service couldn’t have gone any smoother. The crowd, the caisson, the widow and the baby perched on the caisson with Lorraine…nothing fazed Duke, and the theme of the day was dignity.
Lady will be missed, but Duke is going to make his own legacy.
